


A Reason to Fight

by silima



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Alternate Universe - Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, I guess this is angst, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-25 16:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14382186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silima/pseuds/silima
Summary: Hinata has watched her most precious person die a thousand times, but she’ll see it happen a thousand times more before she ever gives up. Puella Magi Madoka Magica AU.





	A Reason to Fight

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto or Puella Magi Madoka Magica.  
>  **Warnings:** Major spoilers for Puella Magi Madoka Magica, major character death, canon-typical violence, and there's a short moment where one character has suicidal urges.  
> .  
>  (BTW, I know that the naming convention in Naruto is to address people primarily by their given names, which I think is because it reveals what clan you're from if you call people that around potential enemies or something like that?? But that's not the case in modern Japanese society or in PMMM, so I have chosen to have characters who are not familiar with each other address one another using last names.)

Hinata stared at the tiled floor and desperately imagined melting into it.

“Miss Hyuuga, would you like to introduce yourself?”

She stared harder, but she did not melt. If only.

“My name is… um, my name is Hinata Hyuuga. It’s a pl—it’s nice to meet all of you!” Her voice went up at the end, cracking awkwardly. She wished she could eat her words.

“Thank you. Now, everyone, Miss Hyuuga has missed quite a bit of school due to a heart condition, so please be sure to help her out.”

Hinata flushed with embarrassment.

“Why don’t you sit down,” Mr. Umino said.

* * *

Gym was hard. Math was harder. Even grammar gave her a headache, and Hinata had _liked_ grammar. With every period that passed, Hinata felt the eyes of the class boring holes into her. She could practically hear their mocking thoughts. Gosh, Hinata Hyuuga was so _stupid_ _,_ wasn’t she? She needed help in every single subject, needed to take a break every five minutes in gym class, needed to stop being such a _dumbass_ and a _weirdo._

She couldn’t even socialize. A few girls approached her halfway through the afternoon, asking her about her old school, her activities—meaningless small talk, but they were trying to be nice to her, and yet all she could do was mumble and stutter out awkward answers to a fraction of their questions.

Thank God she’d been rescued halfway through the conversation.

“Hey, guys,” a blonde boy interrupted. “Uh, Miss Hyuuga has to go down to the nurse’s office now. She has to take some medicine every day, so…”

“Oh, sorry,” a pretty pink-haired girl said. “It was nice talking to you, Miss Hyuuga!”

Hinata vaguely remembered the blonde boy from math class, earlier this morning. When called upon to answer a question on the board, he’d known almost as little as she did about the material, but he’d been so unbothered, so unabashed. When Mr. Umino had rolled his eyes and told him to come in for extra help after school, he’d just laughed it off and went right back to messing around with a friend of his who sat next to him.

She wished she could be more like him. It was better to be stupid with friends than stupid and lonely.

As they wandered through the halls, Mr. Uzumaki—that was his name—kept talking. “Hey, Miss Hyuuga, can I call you Hinata? Y’know, it’s just that there’s another Hyuuga I know, and it’s weird calling you both ‘Hyuuga-san.’” He was really chatty. He didn’t seem to mind how quiet she was all the time; even when she didn’t respond to him, he seemed content to fill the silence with the sound of his own voice. He had a nice voice.

She turned red. _Hinata?_ It was so informal. So… friendly. Somehow, the idea of this boy calling her such a familiar name made her heart pound in her ears.

“Uhm, sure! That’s fine, Mr. Uzumaki… It’s just that no one really calls me by my first name,” she murmured.

“Oh man, don’t call me Mr. Uzumaki!” He burst out laughing. “You sound like some stuffy old grownup when you say it like that. Just call me Naruto, everyone does, y’know.”

And that was the first time she talked to Naruto.

* * *

The second time she spoke to him was decidedly less pleasant.

Her first day of school had ended half an hour ago. As she walked home, Hinata couldn’t help but feel miserable. After all, her parents had always been disappointed in her in the past whenever she had brought home mediocre grades. How would they react _now,_ when she had dropped from a “mediocre” student to easily dead-last? And they wouldn’t be wrong to tell her that she was pathetic, no. She was _._ No friends, no intelligence, no presence, even. What was the point of her even being alive? If she died, who would it affect? No one, really…

 _You should just die,_ a voice hissed. It didn’t sound human, and it seemed to come from all around her, echoing in her ears. _You should just die. You should just die._

Her feet trudged on. There was a railing near here, where the bridge dropped off into fast-flowing highway traffic. Hinata’s feet dragged toward it. She didn’t care if she fell. It would be better, wouldn’t it, if she just dropped into traffic…

The concrete beneath her feet shimmered like a mirage, warping into dark water. Gasping, she looked up.

The whole world had changed around her, becoming strange and unnatural, like bad CGI. Everything was weird and jagged and _wrong_. Clouds of mist swirled and hissed cruelly and stung at her skin. Snowflakes that didn’t look quite like snowflakes danced around her, and she swore they were laughing at her in that same inhuman voice she had heard before.

A strange, humanoid creature formed itself out of the snow, with fingers like clawed ice and empty eyes. It fluctuated and writhed before her, seeming halfway formless as it staggered toward her on claw-footed legs.

Hinata screamed and tried to run, tripping over her feet as she did so.

“Woah, careful, Hinata!”

She looked up and saw… Naruto, holding his hand out for her.

Except he was wearing what looked like a male ballerina’s outfit, but bright orange and with more frills. And he was holding a ball of swirling blue energy. Beside him was a girl Hinata vaguely recognized, a Chinese upperclassman who was friends with her cousin Neji. She, too, was wearing a very elaborate dancer’s outfit, and her hair was pinned up in twin buns. Strange, slightly old-fashioned knives floated in a semicircle around her.

Hinata took his hand, and he pulled her up. His hand was warm in hers.

“Guess our cover’s blown, haha,” he said, half-grinning. “Don’t tell anyone at school, okay?”

And then the upperclassman girl swung her arm out, releasing her knives, and Naruto threw his blue energy at the amorphous creature, and then the strange world shattered and they were all standing back on the bridge.

“Aaaah, man, I’m exhausted,” the upperclassman girl sighed. “Do you guys wanna head back to my place?”

* * *

 “So… that was a witch?” Hinata asked. “What exactly _are_ witches?”

“They’re creatures born from curses,” Tenten said, her voice heavy. “They hide out in those weird, unreal spaces, which are called labyrinths, and they draw innocent people in to kill them. We—that is, magical girls and boys—are duty-bound to fight them.” She sipped her tea. "Kurama—” she gestured at the foxlike orange creature in the corner “—grants us one wish, anything we ask for, and in exchange, we accept a destiny of fighting."

“Yeah!” Naruto interjected. “It’s not easy to fight witches, y’know, but we have to do it, to protect our most precious people.” He beamed. “Without us, all the people of Konoha would be in big trouble. Fighting and risking our lives is worth it if it’s for them.”

Hinata felt her face heat up, even though she didn’t know why. “Oh… wow. You guys really know a lot about this stuff, huh…”

“Ehehe… not really, y'know. Tenten’s been doing this way longer than I have. I just made my contract with Kurama last week, to be honest…”

“You’ve been doing really well, though,” Tenten pointed out, smiling. “Your control over that Rasengan today was better than it’s ever been. You should be proud.”

Naruto grinned. He was beautiful when he smiled.

* * *

“Hinata, _stay back._ You can’t follow me in this fight. I have to do this alone!”

“No! No, Mr. Uzumaki… you saw what that monster did to Miss Tenten! You’ll die for sure!”

Wind whipped around them. Konoha had been completely evacuated—thousands of people were cowering in the storm shelter, hoping that the unexpected supercell would pass them by. Little did they know that the anomaly in the weather wasn’t naturally caused at all. While most people would see a huge, raging black cloud, Hinata and Naruto could see the source of the chaos for what it truly was: a witch the size of a mountain, a ten-tailed treelike monster that, even though it had no labyrinth, distorted the very fabric of reality around it.

Beside them, Tenten’s body lay limp and lifeless.

“I have to do this,” Naruto insisted, looking fiercer than she had ever seen him. “I can’t let the people of Konoha suffer.”

“You’ll die,” Hinata whispered.

Somehow he heard her over the howl of the wind. “Nah, I won’t. As long as I know what I’m fighting for, I’ll never stop.”

As long as he knew what he was fighting for?

Why did Naruto do it? Why did he fight for Konoha—what was so _special_ about these people, anyway; what made him want to protect them so badly that he’d throw his life away for them? What had they ever done for him? Konoha wasn’t special. Konoha wasn’t unique, or beautiful. Konoha didn’t have a smile like a thousand suns or eyes so blue that she felt she could drown in them. Konoha wasn’t confident, or comforting, or kind, or everything that Hinata wished she could be but wasn’t.

Konoha didn’t deserve Naruto.

Naruto wrapped her up in a hug. His arms were tight and warm around her, shielding her from the rain and the wind. She closed her eyes, and for a split second, she could imagine that everything was okay, even though it absolutely wasn’t.

“Hinata, take Tenten’s body and run. Get out of here. I’ll be back.”

Hinata opened her mouth to object, but Naruto cut over her.

“ _Shhh._ I promise I’ll win, okay? Because I’m Naruto Uzumaki, y’know!”

And then he was gone.

And he didn’t come back.

* * *

“No, no, no,” she whispered. “This isn’t… this wasn’t supposed to happen! This isn’t right!” Her voice cracked, and she could feel hot tears blurring her vision. He had _promised,_ he’d been so certain when he told her that he would come back. And now he lay dead before her, half-submerged in scummy water, the fragments of his Soul Gem scattered across his chest. His eyes were glassy and so, so blank.

**“What did you expect?”**

Hinata whipped around, furious.

Kurama, the small, foxlike creature that had given Tenten and Naruto their powers, stared down at her. His red eyes were utterly emotionless, like the eyes of a doll.

**“He took on an enemy that he was completely unprepared to handle. Isn’t it inevitable, that a knucklehead like him would eventually throw himself into a fight he couldn’t win?”**

“No,” she snapped. “He was—he would’ve… if I hadn't been so useless, if he hadn't been alone in that fight…”

**“Is that what you want? To fight the ten-tailed witch?”**

“No!” she cried. “That’s not… I just wish I could have protected him—that I could’ve fought in all those battles so that he would never have had to.” She wiped her eyes. “I wish I could meet him all over again, and this time, he wouldn’t have to protect me all the time, because I would be able to protect _him._ ”

Kurama’s black lips parted in what must've been a smile. His nine tails swirled behind him.

**“Is that a wish that you would risk your life for?”**

* * *

Seeing Naruto again was the most wonderful feeling in the world. When she saw him again, she shoved aside the memories of his dead body and focused instead on how he looked _now:_ beautiful, laughing, alive. She was a magical girl. She could travel in time. And Naruto would never have to suffer again.

She approached him immediately after their first-period class and showed him her Soul Gem. “Mr. Uzumaki, I’m a magical girl too!”

He looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching and stuttered out a reply. It seemed that he didn’t really know how to handle her.

**.**

After school, it turned out that Tenten didn’t, either. “What did you say your abilities were?”

“Um, I use time… I can stop it, that is, and move around while everything else is frozen.” Fighting as a magical girl seemed like it was going to be a lot harder than she had expected.

“That’s it?”

“Well, yes…”

Tenten sighed. “Time magic… well, it’s nothing to sneeze at in terms of power, but I don’t really know how you’ll be able to use it in battle.”

“I-I’ll figure it out,” Hinata promised. Even though she had no idea where to start.

* * *

Her first attempts at fighting were absolutely pathetic. Her later attempts were solidly mediocre. Smashing stuff up with a hammer she’d stolen out of her father’s toolshed wasn’t all that impressive, even if it _was_ done in suspended time. Smashing stuff up with cruddy, homemade bombs was a little bit flashier, but in an actual fight, it proved to be supremely awkward, especially when she was fighting alongside a close-ranged fighter like Naruto, who kept almost getting caught up in the explosions. (So much for coming back in time to protect him.) Eventually, she figured out explosives, guns, and where to steal them from.

They joined up with a new magical girl in their class named Sakura, who was close friends with Naruto. She hadn’t even made the contract in the previous timeline, but she was really passionate this time around. Naruto liked her a lot—he never said so, but Hinata could tell.

But Sakura had no interest at all in Naruto. She had made her contract to save a sick boy named Sasuke, and it seemed that he was the only person she would ever entertain as a possible romantic interest. For that, Hinata breathed a sigh of relief.

Sakura was a lot like Naruto, even though she’d probably hate to hear that. They were both a little bit impulsive, and they both had a kind of fire in them. When Sakura fought, she was a living flame. Hinata didn’t blame Naruto for finding her attractive.

Hinata didn’t blame Ino for that, either.

Ino was another magical girl who had come from outside of town. She didn’t really get along with the rest of them, who followed Tenten’s strait-laced way of doing things; instead, she made her own path and killed witches mostly for her own gain. But she and Sakura seemed like they were on their way to becoming friends, and perhaps more than that, when the unthinkable happened.

Sakura became a witch.

Magical girls and boys, Tenten had told them, were heroes born from wishes. Witches were the monsters born from curses and hatred. So it was only natural that magical children should fight against them. It just made sense.

But for a magical girl to become a witch… that was wrong. That couldn’t possibly be what was supposed to happen. Because if it was—if a magical girl’s destiny was to die fighting witches or to fall into despair and become one—

—then what did that mean for all of them?

Naruto and Ino refused to accept it. They entered Sakura's labyrinth, called out to the witch that had once been their friend, cried for her to _just_ _remember who she was, she didn’t want to do this._ Sakura was a magical girl. She didn’t want to hurt and kill and hate the world.

When one of the monsters running inside the labyrinth missed killing Naruto by a hair's breadth, Hinata had to act. Using a bomb she’d made herself, she blew up the witch that used to be her friend with tears running down her face and a hoarse apology in her throat.

* * *

 Hinata thought that killing Sakura was the most painful thing she’d ever do.

She was wrong.

Just as before, the ten-tailed witch descended upon Konoha. But one more magical girl made no difference. When Hinata lay gasping and broken on the ground beside Naruto, she couldn’t help but think that maybe it would be okay to die here, as long as it with him.

She’d used far too much magic in the fight. Her Soul Gem was almost black. If it wasn’t purified, she would become a witch, like Sakura had. She glanced over at Naruto, right beside her. His Soul Gem was just as dark as hers was.

“Do you have any Grief Seeds?” she whispered hoarsely.

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut. “No,” he said, and it was the quietest she had ever heard him speak.

“Me neither.”

The wind screamed around them. The ten-tailed witch would kill everyone. Hinata couldn’t bring herself to care. At least Naruto was alive.

“You know…” Hinata murmured, then coughed. “You know, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be a witch. We could be witches together, and we could break, and kill, and really just mess up this whole rotten world together.” She was crying now, and her voice was weak and came out as half a sob. “The world doesn’t deserve to be protected by someone as wonderful as you, Naruto.”

Naruto laughed, a weak, watery chuckle. “Hinata… you called me by my first name.” He smiled at her through tearstained cheeks. “That’s the first time you’ve done that, y’know.”

He drew something out of his pocket, reached over to touch her Soul Gem. And suddenly Hinata felt her strength returning to her.

She stared openly at the Grief Seed he had used to purify… _her_ Soul Gem. What—why hadn’t he used it on himself, if he had one—he was going to become a witch _and s_ _he would be powerless to stop it—_

“I lied earlier.” Naruto coughed. “Hinata… you can travel in time, right?”

“Wh… I can, but…”

“Then, can you promise me something?”

“Anything,” she said. Her eyes stung, and his beautiful golden hair was blurring before her. “Anything, I promise.”

“Will you go back, and—and save me from making that contract with stupid Kurama?” he asked.

“Yes,” Hinata wept. “Yes, I promise you, I will.”

He smiled weakly.

“One more thing…” Naruto whispered.

She wiped at her tears.

“I don't want to become… a witch.”

Hinata drew her gun, and she couldn't stop the sob that ripped its way out of her throat.

* * *

This time, Hinata swore she would stop him from making the contract. She confronted him halfway through the school day and warned him not to accept miracles; she shot Kurama when he tried to get close to Naruto. She wouldn’t let that damn fox win.

And for weeks, it seemed that she was successful. Because he didn’t make the contract and become a magical boy, he never befriended Tenten. When Tenten died, Hinata choked back tears, but she was glad that Naruto wouldn't suffer with her.

He deserved to be spared from every tragedy that she could protect him from.

Still, Hinata couldn’t protect him from everything. She couldn’t stop his confusion and anger and sorrow when Sakura mysteriously went missing after she fell into despair. She couldn’t stop him from crying when Sasuke Uchiha, his close friend, died in a witch’s labyrinth. And she couldn’t give him his parents back, like Kurama had before.

The last one hurt her the most. The other tragedies she could blame on the fox, for meddling in the lives of others, but to know that Naruto was living with that loneliness in his heart grated upon her conscience. The price that Kurama would ask for Naruto’s parents was his soul, his life. He didn’t deserve to lose those.

But she could tell how pained he was, so different from when she had first met him. He was still loud and reckless, but he didn’t have that brilliant _happiness_ that she had so loved to see in him before. He was still beautiful. He was still wonderful. Even so, he was sad.

Hinata whispered assurances to herself: it would all be worth it if he lived. The pain he lived with now was nothing compared to the all-consuming despair of transforming into a witch. If she let Kurama steal his soul, his pain would shrink for a moment only to snowball into something a million times worse. She couldn’t let that happen.

It worked right up until the end.

On the day that she knew the ten-tailed witch would appear, Hinata knew she would have to fight alone. Tenten and Sakura were dead. Hinata had no idea where Ino was and no way of contacting her. With the ten-tailed witch descending fast, she was Konoha’s last line of defense.

And she couldn’t let Naruto’s precious home suffer.

It was in the last moments of the fight. She was bleeding—from a gaping wound on her head, from little lacerations all over her body from flying debris and attacks she’d failed to dodge. Her Soul Gem was untouched for now, but it was running out of energy, and any second now, she’d take a hit that would put her out of the fight for good.

The ten-tailed witch was barely damaged.

Hinata was going to die.

And then a blue glow overwhelmed her. Naruto, dressed all in orange, practically glowing with power, jumped in front of her. In his hand glowed the largest Rasengan she had ever seen him make.

* * *

**“How impressive,”** Kurama said. **“I knew that Naruto had a great deal of natural talent, but to think that he would take down the ten-tailed witch in a single shot…”** His lips split open to form that horrible, emotionless smile. **“The amount of energy that came from his transformation into a witch is simply enormous. We won’t need to make any more contracts with humans after** **_th_** _ **is.”**_

Hinata shivered at the cruel satisfaction in Kurama’s eyes—the first emotion she had ever seen the fox display.

 **“Naruto will probably destroy humanity within the next week or so. Whatever. What happens next is Earth’s problem, not ours.”** His tails swirled around him, and he pawed at his face.

She couldn’t bear to look at the monster that had done all this. Hinata turned on her heel and glanced at the Soul Gem on her hand.

It glowed a dim purple—just enough magic for another jump back in time. Perhaps this time would be better. Perhaps this time, she’d find a happy ending for the boy she loved.

Hinata closed her eyes and steadied herself.

_As long as I know what I’m fighting for, I’ll never stop._

**Author's Note:**

> If you've got any feedback, I'd love to hear it! :)


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